#dh: excerpt

[burnitmyg]

staring at him like "oh so this is the dude she's with now... damn..."

[deathlonging]

experiencing a joy reading articles on dh grown unfamiliar since its last heyday in moby dick march and shakespeare girl summer

[sideprince]

Eileen Prince

I'm relentlessly curious about how a witch from Slytherin, a house that values cunning and ambition on paper, and bloodlines/nobility in its culture, ended up living in a muggle slum.

Unfortunately for me, she's a barely mentioned character written by an author who consistently fails to portray female characters with depth or dimension. The women in Harry Potter are portrayed as either maternal or villains, or, in Ginny Weasley's case, as redeemed by their masculine traits (because Rowling's Thatcher era feminism dictates that equality for women = emulating patriarchal ideas of manhood). About as much as you can expect from an author who's as unable to acknowledge the personhood of trans women as she is to write women as actual people. This leaves a lot of room for interpreting or delving into what Eileen Prince's life may have looked like, and how that would have affected her son's development.

There are three direct mentions of Eileen in the text :

“The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.”

HBP Ch. 25

“I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape, and then later an announcement saying that she’d given birth to a" “ — murderer,” spat Harry.

HBP ch. 30

“Harry looked around: he was on platform nine and three-quarters, and Snape stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a thin, sallow-faced, sour-looking woman who greatly resembled him.”

DH Ch. 33

(Shoutout to Harry James Potter, who didn't recognize Eileen's fifth year photo despite her resemblance to Snape, the teacher whose classroom he got his used Potions book from. Shoutout also to Harry James Potter who didn't connect the dots between the Prince's handwriting and Snape's, a teacher who regularly wrote instructions on the board. "I needed to make the plot work, ok?" - JK Rowling, probably.)

Other relevant excerpts:

“Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner ”

OoTP Ch. 26

“Harry delved into his trunk and pulled out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making before getting into bed. There he turned its pages, searching, until he finally found, at the front of the book, the date that it had been published. It was nearly fifty years old.”

HBP Ch. 16

Supplemental material re: Gobstones from JK Rowling:

"...it remains a minority sport within the wizarding world, and does not enjoy a very ‘cool’ reputation, something its devotees tend to resent. Gobstones is most popular among very young wizards and witches, but they generally ‘grow out’ of the game, becoming more interested in Quidditch as they grow older.  ... Gobstones enjoys limited popularity at Hogwarts, ranking low among recreational activities, way behind Quidditch and even Wizarding Chess." [There's an additional sentence on the Harry Potter wiki's Gobstones page: "...it is also known as 'the thinking wizard's Quidditch.'"]

A few conclusions can be drawn from what little information we're given about Eileen:

She's described as "cross and sullen" around the age of 15, and as "sallow-faced, sour-looking" when she's older.

She's captain of the Gobstones club around her fifth year, so she likely marched to the beat of her own drum - given that Gobstones isn't particularly popular - and owns it proudly enough to take, or even seek out, a leadership role.

The sport is described as "the thinking wizard's Quidditch" which would imply Eileen was more interested in intellectual challenges and was clever (and can be paralleled with a young Severus' comment about "if you'd rather be brawny than brainy" to James Potter when they first meet on the Hogwarts Express).

Her marriage and the birth of her son are both announced in the paper, which might mean the family she came from was of some importance or note, or perhaps something else... but we'll get to that.

If we assume that Severus' secondhand copy of Advanced Potion Making was originally Eileen's (reasonable, though there is no textual evidence) then its publication date is likely around the time she was a sixth year, given that this particular text was specific to students beginning to prep for N.E.W.T. exams. Harry begins his sixth year in 1996 when the book is "nearly fifty years old," so we can assume Eileen was 16 years old sometime not long after 1946. Severus was born in 1960, which would mean Eileen was in her mid-late 20s at the time.

Her marriage was dysfunctional at best, abusive at worst. As per a Pottermore post that is still up on WizardingWorld.com: "...the desperately lonely and unhappy childhood [Severus] had with a harsh father who didn’t hold back when it came to the whip." Based on this, we can assume Tobias was abusive, and given Eileen's cowering as he shouted at her, she presumably feared him.

From these bits of information emerges the image of a woman who either had a surly personality, or at the very least was guarded, though perhaps just formal. There isn't really any difference in how her face is set when she's in an everyday setting like King's Cross, or when she's having her picture taken for the Gobstones Club. It's possible she was a stern, unsmiling person, but it's also possible - given that her wedding and child were announced in the paper - that she came from a family of some standing and was raised to conduct herself with hallmarks of British class, such as dignity and unaffectedness. After all, there are several wizarding families - such as the Potters - who are wealthy purebloods with social standing but are not part of the Sacred 28. Additionally, the Gobstones Club portrait would have been taken around the mid-1940s, when portraits were formal and their subjects did not often smile, and given that we see only a snippet of Eileen, we don't have enough information that she was unhappy or sour. It's also important to remember that we see her portrait and Snape's memory of her through Harry's perspective and, like his perception of Snape himself, this may convey Harry's biases.

We also know from the text that Snape had a house in a deserted part of Cokeworth, a fictional Midlands town that presumably had a collapsed milling industry, at the end of a street called Spinner's End. There's a great thread that goes into details about the kind of 2 up 2 down house it would have been, and we can assume that this is Snape's family home given that we know he and Lily grew up in Cokeworth. For all intents and purposes, the conclusion we can draw from this being the Snape family's home in the 60s is that they were working class and cripplingly poor. Most estates like this had been cleared by the 60s, and no longer exist today.

This begs the question: how did a witch from a possibly well-off family end up in an abusive marriage in an irrelevant slum?

Buckle up kids, we're leaving the world of textual references and veering into deep meta territory now. I won't label any of this as head canon because I'm not set on these interpretations, and am just drawing conclusions from the text, but some of it may be a bit loose even for meta.

If Eileen was 16 years old not long after 1946, then she would have finished school in the late 40s, possibly even 1950. While some people (including past me) posit the theory that Tobias may have been injured in WWII and his injuries debilitated him, forcing him to go on the dole and affecting his mental health, I'm increasingly skeptical of this theory. It would make more sense if Eileen had known him before he was drafted/enlisted and had committed to a relationship with him, which would then have changed when he came back from the war and was altered. If we assume Eileen's age based on the idea that it was her own copy of Advanced Potion Making Severus used, then she would still have been at school during WWII (which makes an interesting parallel with Severus' own experience of spending the bulk of the first wizarding war against Voldemort as a student at school).

I do think, however, that there's merit in the theory that Tobias suffered some kind of altering injury and that he wasn't necessarily abusive before Eileen committed herself to him. It makes little sense for a Slytherin graduate who was confident and self-posessed enough to be the face of an unpopular club to be drawn to a partner so abusive his shouts caused her to cower and who whipped his child freely. If, however, he was a charming, happy man when they met who suffered a life-altering injury, the trauma of which left him a shell of his former self, then someone like Eileen might stick around for the sake of the parts of his old self she can still see in him.

It's interesting that she didn't seem to use her magic to protect herself or her son, or even to dress her son in clothing that fit, but we know from the text that depression can cause a wizard's powers to wane:

“...it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen”

HBP Ch. 13 (Dumbledore talking about Merope Gaunt)

The fact that the Snapes retained the house in Spinner's End seems to indicate that they continued to live there even when the local industry dried up and the slum was cleared as workers were moved to other parts of the country where they were needed (presumably what happened given *gestures at British history*). The most likely explanation for this would be that Tobias wasn't able to work, and perhaps did suffer an injury, only it was at work, and not during the war. This would mean the family lived on the dole (ie. welfare) and also that he would have spent a lot more time at home. It would also explain his anger and frustration that led to abusive behavior (which isn't to say that disabled people are abusive by any means, but it would have been emasculating for a man who considered himself the breadwinner in the 60s, and chronic pain coupled with limited abilities would give anyone a short fuse).

Moreover, this living situation seems to indicate that there is no additional support coming from anywhere. Where is Eileen's family? Why were they not helping? There's no indication in the text that there is any connection with them at all. We can infer from Snape's memories that, as a child, he learned what he knew about the magical world from his mother. This implies that she talked to him about it a fair amount, and his conviction that he and Lily were going to Hogwarts well before they got their letters also implies that Eileen expected him to go there and was set on her son having a magical education, despite how little she seemed to use her own powers.

Severus knows a lot about the wizarding world as a child, including that prisoners are sent to Azkaban and that it's guarded by Dementors, Hogwarts' house structure and what to expect when he and Lily get there, and about the Statute of Secrecy and the laws around it. When Lily asks him if it makes a difference being Muggleborn, Severus hesitates before replying no, presumably because he's aware of pureblood bias being a part of wizarding culture.

Perhaps that's the reason Eileen's family doesn't seem to be in the picture. My own theory is that Eileen hadn't planned to commit herself to Tobias long-term, and Severus was an accidental outcome of an innocent tryst in which a young Eileen, an educated witch from a well to do pureblood family, was having fun slumming it with a working class muggle and ended up pregnant. While we don't know the wizarding world's attitude around pregnancy and abortion, we do know it's a conservative and classist society that parallels muggle British culture fairly closely, and that the late 50s/early 60s were a time when an out of wedlock baby would have been considered a disgrace.

Add to that the anti-muggle bias of a pureblood family and it sounds like Eileen was disowned her for her mistake (and don't @ me, but even though I know that not all Slytherins are purebloods, it does seem to be a persistent cultural value of the house reaching back to Salazar Slytherin himself, so Eileen's being sorted into it can reasonably be taken as an indication of her blood status). Perhaps the marriage and birth announcements in the Daily Prophet were put in by Eileen herself, if she was a woman from a family where this was customary. It may have been her way of letting her family know of the events, or even of asserting herself and even deliberately defying them, announcing to the whole wizarding world that a Prince married and had a child with a muggle. It makes sense that the girl who wasn't just in the Gobstones club, but became captain, would also say to herself, why shouldn't I have my marriage announced in the paper like everyone else in the family?

It's worth noting that mid-late 20s is pretty young to have a baby in the wizarding world, where the life expectancy and child bearing years are much longer than they are for a muggle. According to the Harry Potter wiki:

"Wizard life expectancy in Britain reached an average 137¾ years in the mid-1990s, according to the Ministry of Divine Health ... Wizards in general have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles, usually living two or three times as long as their non magical counterparts, some living even longer than that depending on circumstances. In addition, seeing as James Potter's parents had him "late in life,” witches likely have significantly longer childbearing years than Muggle women."

Although we see several characters in Severus' generation getting married and having kids not long after leaving school, there's a mention in the text that a lot of people were doing this during Voldemort's reign, as the fear he inspired made people more eager to get a move on with life since they thought they might die any day (I think Mrs. Weasley says this but I can't find the quote, @ me if you do). It's clear this wasn't the norm in the wizarding world. Eileen was a Slytherin, a house that values cunning, ambition, and strong wizarding heritage. Something must have gone very wrong in Eileen's life for her to end up having a child so young and living in a muggle slum.

And so it's possible Eileen Prince found herself pregnant and alone, having been disowned by her family to save face in light of her disgrace, and dependent on the only person she was still close to, the father of her child. It's the kind of storyline that Rowling would write, and it would parallel fairly closely the story of Voldemort's mother, thus adding another to the long list of similarities between Voldemort and Snape.

Lorrie Kim makes an interesting point when she talks about how Snape has a strong reaction to other people having a love life or romantic experiences (the context being Rowling's intention of his love for Lily being romantic and unrequited), but doesn't react particularly strongly to mothers sacrificing themselves for their children, whereas Voldemort does. Her insight, and I think it's a reasonable one, is that Severus accepts the idea of mothers making sacrifices for their children, whether it's Lily giving her life for Harry or Narcissa risking all she did to ask for his help in protecting Draco, because his own mother protected him from his father as much as she could.

There's a lot of room for interpretation on what Eileen's relationship with her son looked like, and what it says about her own state. She may have prioritized not angering Tobias to protect Severus, who as a child might have perceived her actions as a form of rejection. At the same time, she seems to have prepared him thoroughly for life in the magical world, perhaps in the hope that he would find his place in it and escape home. Perhaps she missed it and told him so much about it so she could live through her own memories.

The only time we see her argue with Tobias, in Severus' memory, she's cowering as he shouts. We know from JK Rowling that Tobias used corporal punishment liberally, which implies Eileen didn't stop him despite her magical abilities. We also see in the text, however, that while at school Severus stood up for himself against bullies and fought back, and that he was an exceptionally clever and powerful wizard. As an adult he was brave enough to face Dumbledore when he betrayed Voldemort, and later fought against Voldemort right under his nose (or lack thereof). So it stands to reason that at some point Severus began to stand up against Tobias too.

How much of that was Eileen's influence, or the result of Severus seeing her acceptance of her fate and rejecting it for himself, is hard to say. As for what happened to Tobias and Eileen that their house was Severus' by the mid-90s and they were nowhere in sight, I don't think there's enough information in the text to infer.

[toorumlk]

Hi I'm so freaking obsessed with your twitter.

Also what's your favorite Romione moment in the books and why?

ohohoho thank you, friend, i’m quite proud of some of the stuff i’ve posted on there B)

and as for my favourite romione moment in the books, when i read the question i first blanked out for a couple minutes, thinking of a bunch of smaller, sillier scenes. but then i remembered that i do have a favourite and it’s from chapter 11 of DH, when remus visited the trio at grimmauld place and filled them in on he goings on of the war -including the implementation of the muggle-born registry. ron’s response upon hearing this (after his immediate outrage) was

and it’s not just the hand holding and the “‘you won’t have a choice’ said Ron fiercely” that played out so vividly in my head like this:

but this scene demonstrates so perfectly the political weight of this pairing (muggleborn/blood traitor) which i think is the immovable narrative foundation of romione. all of their silly moments and idiosyncrasies aside, there is genuine narrative purpose behind this love. ron has always had an astute understanding of the blood supremacist politics of the wizarding world (need i remind that he was ready to curse shitco at the ripe age of 12 for calling hermione the in-universe slur) and just how wrong it is. ron is a pure-blood wizard and by design has so much privilege in this society bc of it, but by virtue of having parents like arthur and molly, he’s grown up knowing the importance of fighting against blood supremacist ideology. always.

so, after hearing about the completely horrifying muggleborn registry ("People won't let this happen," said Ron. "It is happening, Ron," said Lupin.), he immediately turns to his muggleborn best friend and love of his life and says “i’m making you a family member, i’m going to use the protection my family-name has and use it to protect you from the awful injustice of our situation, no you won’t have a choice but to let me help you”

i remember having such a… visceral reaction while reading this scene like holy shit .. these kids, THESE KIDS!!!!! this is the bone-marrow-deep love that makes me feel insane. this dynamic of the blood traitor/muggleborn always there, from CoS all the way to the epilogue. We get to see that romione is the story’s pure blood/muggleborn that finally made it (rip jily and tedromeda :(). we see it in hermione keeping her muggle last name after they get married (oh my god these two actually got married) and we also see it in the hyphenated Granger-Weasley (granger being first!) in their kids’ last names (oh my gof these two had TWO kids). they are a true symbol of change and progress in their world.

also this is one of those moments where i’m so glad that our only window to romiones relationship development is through harry’s narration because it so brilliantly shows the readers this blossoming love story instead of just telling us about it because harry obviously doesn’t have access to the inner thoughts of his two best friends, he can only witness them fall deeper in love. showing the audience acts of love is always more powerful and my god is this an act of showing your love to your beloved.

(and not to go on an unrelated tangent, but this is exactly why i could never ship my girl hermione w any DE or DE-adjacent character. no fucking way. not when the concept of a muggle-born registry exists in this universe, not when the antagonists in this story wish to eradicate people like her from their society. idk about the rest of y’all but im going to keep taking the narrative seriously bc the worldbuilding obviously has real world ties/implications and i like engaging with the canon. tangently to the tangent, i saw someone (a ron basher) on twitter say that ron, OUR RON FROM THE ABOVE EXCERPT, was “one bad day away from becoming a death eater” ohhhh ohhh i ought to beat you with sticks bc HUH? this is the same kid who said he would’ve boarded the train back to kings cross if he got sorted to slytherin, the house notorious for birthing DEs, at the tender age of 11)

anyways, all this to say is that romione is incredibly, realistically, materially romantic and i love them and i love their love <3

[runin-reads]

James/Lily vs James/Sirius: a case of accidental queer coding

Jily (James/Lily) is a pairing central to the HP universe in the sense that had they not been married, Harry Potter, the main character, would cease to exist and neither would his story as we know it. Yet we are left with only a few brief glimpses of their relationship in canon whilst other pairings are textually far more fleshed out– take Prongsfoot (James/Sirius), for example, who are frequently portrayed as The Duo, not just by those closest to them (Lupin) but by many others too such as McGonagall, Flitwick and so on. Harry himself could see how close they were during SWM in OOTP and this is someone who had a very limited time with Sirius and close to none with James. 

Queercoding is described as “the subtextual coding of a character in media as queer. Though such a character's sexual identity may not be explicitly confirmed within their respective work, a character might be coded as queer through the use of traits and stereotypes recognisable to the audience.” One character comes to mind when I think of “queercoding” and that’s Sirius Black. He’s estranged from his family, goes against the norms associated with his upbringing, there’s no mention of any ex-girlfriends and most notably he has intense love and devotion for his male best friend; James Potter.  At first glance, James had led an incredibly hetero-normative life by virtue of his wife and son, but through his relationship to Sirius there’s leeway to reach a queer reading of him as well. 

As recognised by countless characters and even Sirius himself, Prongsfoot come in a two-for-one deal:

“Do you remember who his best friend was?”  “Naturally,” said Madam Rosmerta, with a small laugh. “Never saw one without the other, did you? The number of times I had them in here — ooh, they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!”  “Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course — exceptionally bright, in fact…”  “You’d have thought Black and Potter were brothers!” chimed in Professor Flitwick. “Inseparable!” 

The use of the word “brothers” in the above quote is one reason why fans don’t interpret Prongsfoot as queer-coded and/or romantic. However, it’s important to note that Sirius never referred to James as a brother, and there’s no canonical proof to suggest that Flitwick was close to James and Sirius– he was their teacher, not their friend or confidant. He isn’t calling them “brothers” either but rather he’s saying that word to express how strong their bond was. Hence why I believe an exclusively fraternal reading of their relationship doesn’t hold much weight. 

They are, however, established as each other’s closest friend and most trusted confidant. 

“Harry had the distinct impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off.” “Potter trusted Black beyond all his other friends. Nothing changed when they left school. Black was the best man when James married Lily. Then they named him godfather to Harry.  “I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me.”  “Lily and James only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested it,” Black hissed

On multiple occasions James and Sirius were described as a unit– The Unit– within their friend group. Lupin said they were “the cleverest students in the school.” They were the “ringleaders” of the Marauders; always on the same page and in agreement with each other.

“Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.” 

Even during their very first encounter, they quickly and effortlessly become a team. 

“Got a problem with that?”  “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy–” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.  James roared with laughter.

This excerpt from DH also neatly sums up the Marauders group dynamic:

“To Sirius’s right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been. On James’s left was Lupin, even then a little shabby-looking, but he had the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included” 

Lily herself acknowledged Sirius’ importance in James’ life in her letter to Sirius, where she all but says that only he could lift James’ mood whilst the Potters’ were hiding from Voldemort’s forces. 

“James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell — also, Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much.” 

On the other hand, Jily is portrayed in a less compelling way for lack of better words. I spoke about this in my other meta but to summarise it briefly: Lily is James’ wife, the mother of his son and… that’s pretty much it. In the books they’re barely spoken about as a couple, unlike Prongsfoot who are always mentioned together as if they were a package deal– which they were, as recognised by practically everyone. That’s not to say Jily has zero textual backing, though it is far and few between.

“How come she married him?” Harry asked miserably. “She hated him!”  “Nah, she didn’t,” said Sirius.  “She started going out with him in seventh year,” said Lupin.  “Once James had deflated his head a bit,” said Sirius.  “And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,” said Lupin. 

Conclusion

What we do know about James and Lily’s relationship is limited to the following: Lily disliked James because he and Snape were enemies, James developed feelings for her first, they began dating in seventh year once James had matured, they got married when they were nineteen to twenty years old, had a child together. The end. 

On the contrary, James and Sirius are constantly implied to be each other’s closest, most loyal friend; each other’s most trusted confidant. They are equals in every conceivable way. Both were popular, from wealthy backgrounds  and intelligent. Throughout the entire series Sirius’ only priority was Harry, James’ son. He went through unfathomable lengths to protect Harry: he was the first to escape Azkaban, he snuck into Hogwarts with all the dementors around and lived off rats during the GOF so he could be close to Harry, the last piece of James he had left. 

There’s also evidence to suggest Sirius was a narrative parallel to Snape. There are two adults in Harry’s life who sought to protect him due to their respective relationships with one of his parents. Snape was a double agent for Dumbeldore out of love for Lily; Sirius escaped Azkaban to protect Harry out of love for him, an extension of his love for James. 

All these factors are  why I believe that by not fleshing out Lily as a character and Jily as a couple, JKR accidentally queer-coded Prongsfoot. 

[nitebloom]

an excerpt from "love on the farm" by dh lawrence

[jacobsnicket]

been trying to avoid dh memoir spoilers because i’m still waiting on my preorder but 👀👀👀 at the excerpts i have been seeing

[wormytoast]

hmmm

i gotta update my graphic

2.2 with robin and boothill, 2 phys 5*, no 4* (physical is only missing a pres unit)

2.3 with firefly, possibly sunday? not sure abt a 4* yet or if there will even be one

depending on how long we have between penacony and the next location/however long they want to take between 2.x and 3.0, we will probably get a 2.4 that continues the xianzhou story and possibly meet more xianzhou natives

maybe we'll go back to belobog and get a new jarilo native since our last unit to actually come from belobog was luka i believe, which is also interesting since we got 4 units from the luofu who had no part in the main xz:lf story (huohuo, xueyi, hanya, guinaifen), meanwhile the only jarilo vi unit we got who didnt appear in the main story is luka. when we returned to jarilo vi after the main story we instead got topaz

weve got confirmation that there will be more than one raiden in the game similar to how theres more than one bronya, so acheron is our first mei and then the second one will probably be the proper Raiden Mei unit (probably lightning destruction?) and she'll probably be released as a flagship unit for the japanese themed world that sparkles most likely from; the japanese world is also probably what that new planar set is themed after

the planar set izumo gensei and the takama divine realm has one half thats a neon-cyberpunk japan and the other half is a red field with swords. acheron could also have a relation to the takama divine realm then? but the mei in the trailer with the horns also had a similar background so they could simply be unrelated. the japanese name dor the planar set basically juxtaposes the two halves of izumo being a super technologically advanced mortal world to the takama realm being a godly and immortal battlefield mired with weapons

curious about march's deal; will she stay a 4 star no matter what "memory" she is embodying? or will it be a dh:il situation where we still need to pull for her, but it just means after u obtain her u just shift her 4* pres unit to her 5* [path] unit. it would make sense since i believe dh and dh:il cannot be placed on the same team so it streamlines the process and declutters the ui. im also wondering if her "memories" will allow her to access non playable paths like the remembrance

definitely excited for the story excerpts where we can play as other characters. its gonna be crazy to watch welt try to talk with acheron while he is reminded of mei

[shy-girl04]

Excerpt from...

Fish

...

Admitted, they swarm in companies,

Fishes.

They drive in shoals.

But soundless, and out of contact.

They exchange no word, no spasm, not even anger.

Not one touch.

Many suspended together, forever apart,

Each one alone with the waters, upon one wave with the rest.

...

DH Lawrence

[broomsticks]

my 2022 year in fic

tagged by @squidgilator forever ago for this, and @tahtahfornow for something similar - soooo late, but yes!

i am so late with this that i’m sure everyone has done it already, but if not -- @tracingpatternswrites? @celestemagnoliathewriter? @lumosatnight? @danpuff-ao3, @schmem14, @acnelli?

1 (jan) —

Resolution (peter-centric, 500, T). Since he was eleven, Peter’s New Year’s Resolution had always been the same: this year I will be braver.

It’d been an accident, really, the first time, he didn’t know Dorcas had been discharged from the hospital wing and Marlene had skipped Divination. And the second, third, well, that was being kind to yourself, wasn’t it? It must’ve been coincidence that Remus gave Lily a cat the following year, but, truly, how unkind of him.

4 (apr) —

the grace unasked for (remadora, 17k, T). my @remuslupinfest 2022 entry, DH AU-but-make-it-canon. What if… instead of going to Bill's after the Malfoy Manor, Harry and co. flee to Tonks' parents' house, where Remus and Tonks are hiding with Andromeda?

That point was driven home two days ago, when the peaceful silence of their morning lie-in was interrupted by the sound of things clattering to the ground and smashing. This wasn't exactly a rare occurrence in the house—just not when Dora was asleep beside him. They'd rushed to Andromeda's room to find her doubled over the dressing table, objects atop all swept to the floor, and the last vestiges of a Patronus dissipating. "Ted," she'd gasped, clutching at Dora. Remus had put his arms numbly around the mother-daughter huddle, feeling waves of horror cresting and breaking over him. Feeling for all the world like he was taking another man's place, living another's life.

5 (may) —

I'm In Here (bellatrix-centric, 1.8k, M). inspired by fantismal & krethes’ 600k modern marauders textfic Did You Miss Me? (highly rec!!). some bellatrix/tom riddle & bella&narcissa, and my first time writing anything remotely spicy!

She’d never told anyone (not even Sirius, not even in his most annoyingly skeptical moments), but he’d kissed her there—the translucent skin on the inside of her left wrist—after, like a gentleman. Until next time, princess — and she’d died again.

6 (jun) —

flowers kiss and miss (narcissa/lily, 1.4k, T), a nonlinear canon compliant drabble collection.

it’s Narcissa’s favorite Lily, pink and breathless.

7 (jul) —

no present like the moment (luna/ginny, 1.5k, T). a oneshot slice-of-life written for @hawksquill’s @hpqueerfest prompt, and inspired by their luna-centric 200k linny AU Luna Lovegood and the Forgotten Circle [also recced here!]

You’re special, Luna Lovegood—you’re magic, Ginny Weasley—they repeat to each other, in tongues spoken and unspoken. In chocolate-tasting kisses, in constellations of freckles and scars traced out by sight and touch and memory alone.

8 (aug) —

More Than This (wolfstar, peter-centric, 3k, T). a mwpp-era asexual!peter POV wolfstar get-together for another @hpqueerfest prompt. i am pretty proud of how many parallel storylines i managed to squeeze in here!

James’ long stretched-out arm is heavy across Peter’s shoulders and, feet curled under her, Lily’s toes are poking his side lightly. They’re grounding anchors, a counterweight against the heady lightness of too much firewhisky and too much future.

9 (sep) —

she's dressed in black again (1.5k, T). technically canon compliant bella/andromeda/prewett twins + narcissa/molly, written for Untagged fest.

Let Bellatrix and Andromeda have their cut flowers, their champagne flutes, in the crystal chandelier-adorned ballroom. She and Molly would be out in the garden, at home amidst the common weeds. Unobtrusive and overlooked, staying away from it all.

i like the title, hahaha, and, er. parts of the rest of the fic 😂

10 (oct) —

We Can Have It All (james/remus, 1.5k, E). hotel balcony pwp for @pumpkinspiceficfest, aka my first time writing something ACTUALLY spicy.

(slightly NSFW excerpt, so snip snip snip)

He was probably pressing Remus into the railing with the forcefulness of his kisses, James realised, but he didn’t have it in him to care about anything else other than his hand curled around Remus’ girth, slick with precum, and Remus’ hand in the small of his back, pulling him closer. Remus’ moans and tugs combined to create an unspoken urging of right here, right now, that James found himself utterly powerless to resist.

note to self that wow i sure posted a lot of nonsense in october!

11 (nov) —

unabashed in a storm (minerva/poppy/pomona, 1.2k, G) for Tarot fest. split POV, the three of them at Remus and Tonks’ wedding.

She lets herself be drawn in by the guests’ gushes and gasps, the brilliant choreography, the magnificent conjurations. It’s a testament to their talent, their synchronicity, and of their determination to fight — their anticipation of a better tomorrow. The ferocity of their spellwork speaks to how deeply they believe it, and for a moment, she believes it too. Beams of light up the night, in every colour she can name, shining all the brighter for the darkness. She thinks, irresistibly, of hope.

12 (dec) —

Tension in Tinsel (dorcas/marlene, 2.5k, E). inspired by incredible art from @carlav-blogs which you all HAVE to check out. Dorlene, ribbons and bows, bondage and suspension. That's it, that's the fic.

“Good,” Dorcas hears herself reply, in a tone she hardly recognises, but she’s pleasantly surprised. She walks to stand between Marlene’s legs, adjusting them so that Marlene’s straddling her. As she levitates the string of Christmas lights around the red strips ascending to the ceiling, Marlene whimpers for her, legs tightening painfully around her hips. “Pose for me, sweetheart,” she instructs.

[snarry-fest-adopt-a-prompt]

FOURTH WEEK RECAP

Here it is the recap of our fourth and last week of posting!! If you didn’t have the chance to read the fics we posted, now it’s a great time to do it. We’ll see you on the 3rd, with our Reveals!

☆ In the Margins of What We Know [Explicit - 27,073 w]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43957401

Summary: At the beginning of Harry’s sixth year, the Dursleys abandon Harry, and within hours the blood protection that kept him safe from Voldemort is gone. Secreted away to Grimmauld Place, he’s dealt another blow: Voldemort attacks with a curse that will destroy the identity of anyone who speaks or writes their name. Harry receives letters from friends and others in the Order using aliases. But one mysterious contact fills his thoughts and later, his dreams.

Told entirely through letters, journal entries, book excerpts, and marginalia.

☆ Fix-It Fuck-Up [Mature - 24,393 w]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43833565/chapters/110216569

Summary: Severus and Harry accidentally travel back in time to Grindelwald's era and find themselves in the middle of the war.

☆ Minds Asunder [Mature - 28,179 w]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44042616

Summary: Something strange happened when Harry found Snape's body, barely alive, in the Shack.

It takes a while for them both to understand they shared more than the memories that helped Harry defeat Voldemort...

☆ Wash this blood clean from my hands [Teen&Up audience - 30,268 w]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44138388

Summary: It starts with Severus Snape and then it continues with him. On and on it goes - from a half-prophecy heard by him when Harry was just a newborn, through years of mistrust and hate, his dark shadow looming over him, protecting him and saving him and sending him to his death but not quite. 

It starts with him and it continues with him.

It’s only fair that it should end with him too.

“So you are here to stop me.”

☆ Fallen [Explicit - 50,743 w]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44415163

Summary: Prompt: 46. Post DH, not epilogue compliant. After the war, the Trio returns to Hogwarts for their seventh year. With Harry's knack of attracting trouble, they stumble upon an ancient curse which Harry accidentally sets off. (Oops!) The curse will bring the whole castle of Hogwarts down (the castle will lose its magic with no hope of reviving it again). The curse was put in place by one Salazar Slytherin as revenge against Godric Gryffindor for breaking his heart. The only solution: the current head of the house of Slytherin must fall in love with the one who set the curse off within one school term meaning ten months and it must be reciprocated. Severus is not pleased.

[splendidissimus]

August 2001 - Rowle (excerpt)

((Content warning: beating, Cruciatus torture, sleep deprivation, bondage, captivity, numb whumpee, hair pulling))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 11: All the lights going dark and my hope’s destroyed. / Captivity / "No one will find you." @whumppromptoftheday this "whumpee doesn't even flinch anymore" prompt ))

((Reminder that Rowle (massive blond guy, violent and reckless enough to kill other Death Eaters with friendly fire) is one of the two Death Eaters whom Voldemort forced Draco to torture for their failures; Harry saw it in a vision in DH. In this universe, Rowle in particular developed a hatred for Draco for it. A bunch of Death Eaters here recently escaped Azkaban and Rowle was sent to bring Draco back to be held prisoner with the others but decided to punish him instead.))

Genre: whump

Romance level: none

Angst level: 5/5

Draco's headspace: numb

((words: ~800))

------------------------------------

Draco woke already in pain. His head was pounding. His neck and back were just aching tightness from being bound in the same position so long. His mouth was rough and thick and dry. His eyes felt like sand when he forced them open; it didn't feel like he'd slept at all. He was lying on the cold dirt floor with a sharp pain running up his side; he supposed he'd been hit or kicked awake.

Rowle must have hit him, but by the time Draco was coherent enough to notice him, he was pacing the short confines of the cellar. He was thumping the side of his fist against the beam Draco had been tied to every time he passed under it, creating a distracted rhythm punctuated by the rare quiet "Fuck." 

Obviously something was wrong. It didn't seem like it was going to help Draco any, though. Nothing that made his captor angry was helpful to him, it just made his life that much less pleasant.

The cellar door was standing open, showing a patch of clear blue sky. It was a few feet of floor and then a short staircase away, and yet it no longer even registered as an escape. It was just nice that, for this moment, there was light. He distantly watched Rowle's silhouette pass in front of it. 

Rowle suddenly threw himself explosively off the beam and kicked him hard in the side, throwing him onto his back with a quiet groan. His tied arms were pinned uncomfortably under him and he twisted to his side to try to relieve the weight from his wrists. 

He saw another kick coming and he just closed his eyes to take the blow. Begging didn't help. Defiance certainly didn't help. It was too hard to even bother; he let noises of pain come as they may, without trying to control them or to give him anything. Maybe when he was done he'd just go away again…

He took a kick to the mouth and the taste of blood followed it with the pain. He coughed into the floor and spat out blood. 

Rowle went back to pacing. Maybe he was satisfied. Maybe he was just worn out enough to calm down. "They're all gone," he said, pacing back across the light of the doorway. He wasn't even really facing him — he wasn't really talking to him, he just had no one else to talk to. "Already caught and locked back up. Already. Those that aren't dead. That was the stupidest motherfucking idea, going after Harry Potter's wife…"

Draco slowly, stiffly pushed himself back to sitting. His back screamed at him for it. It was better than lying in the cold dirt, though.

Moving got Rowle's attention. He should have known better. Rowle whipped back and grabbed his hair, pulling him, staggering, up to his feet but bent backward to look up at him. He could smell rank alcohol oozing from his pores. "This is because of you — if not for you, I'd have been long gone. Out of the country."

He wouldn't have. Even Draco, even now, knew that. He could always tell when people were lying to themselves. He just wanted someone to blame, instead of his own habitually bad choices. 

It didn't seem like a good idea to point that out. 

"I'm not going back." Rowle shoved his wand into his face.

Kill the witness? Was that what he meant to do now? With his parents and Theo already killed, what did it matter? One wayward tear escaped the corner of his eye, and he couldn't move his head to wipe it on his shoulder, so he stared into the distance through Rowle instead. 

Rowle scowled and threw him down by the hair. "Crucio!" 

Draco hit the ground hard, unable to break his fall, and seized under the waves of crashing pain that pulled taut whatever muscles he had left, screaming brokenly. 

When it ended, he was curled up in the dirt, gasping for breath and holding still against the lesser pains that still wracked him. Rowle was on his way up the stairs, climbing out of the pit to leave him alone. In a few seconds he would be gone.

"It's only a matter of time," Draco croaked hoarsely. "They'll find you, too."

"You know what?" Rowle looked down at him with a snarl. "Maybe you're right. Maybe they'll find me and throw my ass back in Azkaban and throw away the key. But they'll never find you." He slammed the cellar door closed, throwing Draco back into utter darkness, and the sound of stones being summoned into place on top of it rumbled through his prison. And then it was silent.

[hermit-writes]

You Make Sense of the Devil

Summary

A ghost from the BAU past reappears and drags up unfinished business for Aaron Hotchner. The ripples are enough to call back missing team members and spread well beyond the circle of his influence.

Tags

James “Bucky” Barnes/Emily Prentiss

Timeline What Timeline, MCU fusion, Criminal Minds fusion, Implied Past Non-Con, liberties were taken with the legal system, Case Fic, International Fanworks Day 2023, No One Is Okay, canon typical trauma, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Excerpt

The team settles on the plane and even the tight quarters cannot mask how few they are. They’ve been whittled down to a functional core, but when it’s just them the masks slip. Reid still carries his sadness along with his chess board and all of Garcia’s extravagance in pink cannot hide that she is missing her heart.

“What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait until the morning briefing?” Rossi asks. There’s no bite in the words and he leaves plenty of space for friendly ribbing about being interrupted mid-cookery or other activities.

Hotch doesn’t take the bait.

“New York Metro police has a string of daytime murders they want us to look into. 22 caliber bullets. On the stroke of noon.”

Reid sits up. “Did they find the tarot card?”

Somewhere in that big brain of his, those two pieces of information were enough to bring back the case, complete with notes, observations, profiles and the things they withheld from the press. Things it took four bodies for the local LEOs to string together.

“They did, but it seems to be a different card. No one made the connection until tonight. The New York field office called me as soon as Metro contacted them. DHS is also inbound.”

“That’s a whole lot of three letter acronyms throwing weight around.”

“No kidding.” Hotch pulls the handful of manilla folder from his bag. He hands out the crisp new copies, but keeps the slightly yellowed original from 2008. “Rossi, I want you at Federal Plaza. We need to make sure information gets shared. We won’t have time for glory hounding.”

“Shouldn’t you be the one liaising?”

“I—” Hotch stops, reflexively touches his left ear. It’s still tender in the pressurized cabin. “I would rather not,” he says at last.

“Understood.” Rossi nods in reassurance. “I’ll take Reid with me.”

Read on Ao3

[dankusner]

Uvalde — homeland security

An excerpt from a New York Times article:

'What we sign up to do'

Matthew McCormick, an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in Del Rio, also received a medal of valor from DHS in March — in his case, for helping the wounded.

McCormick missed most of the standoff.

He told the FBI and Texas Rangers in an audio-recorded statement May 31 — one week after the shooting — that he had business in Uvalde that day and left Del Rio around noon.

Like other officers, he said he learned about the shooting through police radio chatter or group texts.

He sped east on U.S. 90 toward Uvalde.

He arrived at Robb Elementary around 12:50 p.m. and said he heard gunshots.

"I ran to the school where the action was," McCormick said.

"It was chaotic. I mean, there was screaming and yelling everywhere."

"Nobody is really saying anything, everyone is running around," he said. "At that time, honestly, everything was like a blur, but I remember specifically grabbing a little girl."

McCormick said he put the girl over his shoulder and carried her to a staging area at the nearby funeral home.

He handed her over to medics and went back.

On his way, he saw police holding back parents desperate to enter the school to find their children.

He joined another group of officers as they cleared classrooms.

Then he helped an officer treat a girl who had been shot near the armpit.

McCormick said he applied a tourniquet.

"That’s what really (expletive) me up was seeing the little kids there," McCormick said.

He said that some officers were standing around, seemingly doing nothing.

Others were in shock.

There was no urgency? his interviewers asked.

"No. None at all. And that’s what really, really, really got to me," McCormick said.

"I was like, ‘This is what we sign up to do.’"

"I had to grab a couple of BP agents by their vests and (say), 'Look, just do what you can — take a deep breath. We all got kids.' That’s why we do what we do, you know.